I'm not familiar with the comic strip, but a corker is, colloquially, someone or something absolutely top-notch. Just what people tend to think about their new babies.

I was at school with someone with the surname Kork who was known as Korky; that could be another possibility. And I also once knew a man whose surname was Thorpe: his nickname was also Corky which he thought was a half-rhyme for Thorpy. His given names were irrelevant!